Amaranthe 2011

"A strong debut by Swedish/Danish modern power metal act Amaranthe, this album offers crisp, modern sounding power metal, which, while firmly anchored in European power metal, also draws on Gothenburg melodeath and melodic metalcore. This may sound like something that could be a disastrous load of commercial bullshit, but I must admit that I think that this album is pretty good.

Those who like uplifting and catchy Euro-power metal can look forward to melodic and catchy choruses galore, while the influences from Gothenburg metal and melodic metalcore provides a backdrop of groovy riffage and characteristically heavy sounding Gothenburg guitars - and there are even a couple of metalcore breakdowns, too, if you're into that sort of thing. Amaranthe are stylistically akin to bands like Evergrey and Raintime but, in my opinion, superior to the both of them.

With no less then three vocalists - Jake E. Berg (clean male vocals), Eliza Ryd (clean female vocals), and Andy Solveström (screams and growls) - there is plenty of oportunity to explore many forms of vocal expression. I was positively surprised by Eliza Ryd's vocals - very often when power metal bands have female vocalists, their main contribution is typically a soft or polished style of singing, but Eliza Ryd can really belt out some powerful vocals. She has a very powerful voice which suits the energetic and uplifting power metal music on this album (she can do soft and pretty soft, too, as in the ballad "Amaranthine"), and the three vocalists really add some oompf to the choruses.

One of my reservations is that the use of electronics and keyboards bring some sections of the songs on this album dangerously close, sonically, to modern Euro-dance pop music, which is one of the few styles of music that I hate with passion.

In all, this album was a positive surprise to me, and it is recommended to fans of modern European power metal."